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Tienke Zijlstra makes enormous drawings whose boundaries are determined by her own physical reach. Like a conductor, she waves and smears large sheets of paper with sponges, dipped in ink, far over the edges. Then the elaboration, refinement, containment and emphasis begins. In her recent work, lobed, carnal forms proliferate over the paper, they grow, encircle themselves, merge, enclose, fight, dominate, transform: they seem indomitable. But not for Zijlstra, because no matter how unstoppable and organically growing her work may seem, she directs this physical inner world with the healing precision of a surgeon, without losing any of its vitality. You feel her work before you understand it. You grab your belly without realizing it, you imagine yourself in the bowels of a giant beast, or is it you? Zijlstra's work confronts you with your own body, with growing and bleeding, with processes that continue day and night. With the horrifying certainty that everything of value is vulnerable. And beautiful. (text: Caren van Herwaarden)